Since the first atomic bomb exploded, a few earnest scientists have been trying, like Dickens’ fat boy, “to make your flesh creep.” But it took a science editor to do a really competent flesh-creeping job. Last week Perry Githens, editor of Popular Science, gave Philadelphia’s Poor Richard Club (advertising men) some thoughts to shudder over.
“For the first time in history,” Githens said, “a new kind of war is now possible . . . This new kind has no name yet. Call it war without warfare . . .
“Begin by imagining a world in which there are only two preponderantly powerful countries … in a conflict of basic beliefs. Call it cold war or hot peace, both nations feel the world isn’t big enough for their opposing political theologies.”
Sabotage by Stealth. “Now . . . suppose a few men in one of these countries decide the other nation must be ‘removed,’ that it must be wiped out by a war without warfare. Supposing they plan a war without the formalities of overt acts, a kind of global sabotage aimed not at capture but at destruction, a truly ‘preventive war.’ In this creeping war there would be no blitzkrieg, no declaration, no massing of forces.
“The weapons for secret warfare exist. That I am competent to assure you . . . In a secret war the country under attack might wither as a nation, without knowing it had even been sick . . . Those who watch vital statistics might discover a suspicious increase in infant mortality—for the year ending a year ago. New pests would appear that survived the usual sprays. Cattle would develop diseases the county agents had never seen . . .
“Communications would be disrupted … Airplanes would fly smack into mountains and towers—and the surviving pilots would swear they were properly lined up for landing . . .
“Consider Philadelphia. Let’s imagine this great city as it drags through the second or third month of secret siege . . . There have been a couple of epidemics of dysentery. People have clogged the cancer clinic with strange swellings. Hospital corridors are full of trichinosis patients lying bloated and helpless. Some of the smaller plants have shut down. And the big ones have slowed to a production pace worse than a shutdown. This, because of a new kind of common cold which leaves its victims weak and shaky for a month—when it doesn’t flash into fatal pneumonia.”
Panic by Degrees. “The fire department has run itself ragged putting out blazes of unknown origin and unexplained size . . . Crime has increased, naturally. Street lights keep blowing out, and the police signal and radio systems have suffered from jamming. Absenteeism is terrific on the night shifts, because people have taken to staying home after dark. People have taken to staying home in the daylight too.
“There have been rumors of fearful things . . . The public health people did find botulism in the kitchens of the two hotels where the dead were trucked out at night—and buried, trucks and all, the same night. The doctors knew the botulism was only a disguise for death. It was the radioactivity of the corpses that brought out the road-building machines to pour ten feet of concrete into the mass grave the power shovels had dug . . .
“All over the city, the people grew fearful and restless … So tense became the atmosphere in the factories and streets that minor rumors touched off major panics … The amazing thing was how little it took to make the powerful industrial machine grind to a crawl.
“And this without a single atomic bomb . . .”
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